Remembering
by TheNotSoMutantTurtles
Summary: Curtis is struggling to deal with a world no longer his own, while Nathan struggles to remember the person he used to be. Why can't everything just go back to the way it was?
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: Don't own._

_Only just bought the dvd's going cheap in a store and man do I love Nathan. lol. so yeah, I decided to write some fic. This is based on season 1 ep 4 where Curtis goes back in time and ends up in the alternate future where Nathan is the only survivor of the probation workers rampage. I just loved hiw broken he seemed and I just had to write this fic._

Nathan

I came by everyday if I could.

It was the least I could do.

I'd been coughing up blood for days after it had happened, before the hole in my lung repaired itself. The doctors all told me I was lucky to be alive. The injuries I had should have killed me. The police had come to question me, to find out what I knew.

I didn't know anything.

That was the worst part I think.

They told me that the probation officer had flipped out, killed everyone; left me for dead, before continuing his rampage onto the streets. He'd been shot by some druggie he'd been attacking, leaving a trail of witnesses to his crimes. It was the only reason they'd reached me in time.

My memory was almost completely shot. Apparently he'd tried to smash my skull in, cracked it badly. I was in the hospital the longest with that while they ran test after test to make sure a bit of bone hadn't lodged itself into my brain, maybe causing the memory loss. It was thankfully only partial.

I remembered my mum, who surprised me by telling me I'd be coming home to live again. I didn't know she'd kicked me out, which only seemed to make her even more upset. Dad was always popping round to check in with me and I wondered if maybe we'd repaired our estrangement and I just couldn't remember. Mum had to introduce me to Jeremy, her new… the man that she lived with.

I might have had a small panic attack when I'd met him, suddenly reminded of another of my mother's boyfriends, the one that had terrified me for months by telling me all the things he'd be able to do with me when he married my mum. I think mum might have actually started to believe what I'd said at the time was the truth.

When I finally got home things were weird. When I went out for the first time I got lost on the way to the corner shop. But surprisingly I could remember the route to the community centre perfectly. That was one of the reasons I kept coming back. Hoping that maybe if I could remember what had happened for myself, maybe everything else would come back as well.

Sometimes there were other people there; I'd stand beside them and listen while they told me about whichever person they'd come to mourn over, and after a while I could put names to the faces that I sometimes dreamed about. Usually the people there knew who I was, I'd been in the paper as the only survivor of the community centre murders, but after a first confrontation they'd all quickly realised that I wasn't faking my amnesia, I wasn't faking that I didn't remember them the next time I saw them.

Which is why I had to ask. "Do I know you?" to the weird guy standing in front of their memorials now. Had I met him before? Had we ever been standing side by side here before? I wish my head wasn't so messed up.

" I… I thought you were someone else." He muttered.

So not someone I knew before my brain decided to delete him. That was ok. I could work with that.

"What happened?" he asked.

What happened? Didn't this guy read the papers? I swallowed, looked at the pictures of all those that died and decided I might as well explain. Maybe explaining might help me remember.

"We were doing our… community service." I told him, unsurprised really by the hesitance I heard in my voice. I was only regurgitating what I'd been told. The whole event was just a ridiculous black hole in my head. "Probation worker flipped out. Just…" I swallowed again, looked at the photos; willed myself to remember something, but nothing sparked, nothing came back to me. "Just went crazy. And he killed them."

That hit me halfway through like a knife. He killed them, murdered them. Tried to murder me. Left me to die. And I couldn't even remember it. Couldn't even remember them.

I kept my eyes averted when he looked at me, ready for the usual confrontation. "How did you survive?" he asked me, confusion, disbelief, everything I felt day to day. How had I survived? I was hardly the hardiest of people, that why I ran from fights, the snatches of them I could remember of them anyway.

"They say I was half dead when they found me." I told him, that's all they every said. Half dead and lucky to be alive. "Guess I'm just lucky."

"I didn't stop him."

I frowned and looked round, unsure if I'd heard him right. "Sorry?" he looked absolutely devastated. "Did you know them?"

"I wasn't there." He said, looking at me like he was the guiltiest man in the world; which confused the hell out of me. "I wasn't there. I should have been caught. I could have stopped this."

I backed up warily when he started to repeat "I wasn't there!" over and over and over again, like it would somehow help. A tendril of terror lit up inside me when he dropped to his knees, still muttering to himself before he looked at me, going silent. "It's not working!" he told me, anguished, and I took a step back.

Rationally I knew it was just some poor bloke in pieces over his friend's deaths, but that didn't stop me from expecting his eyes to spark in anger at me. Like it was my fault they'd died. I'd nearly ended up in hospital again when someone's father, or brother, or whatever he'd been had decided that since he couldn't beat the man who'd done it; he would beat the one who'd survived in his place. Thankfully the people who'd been with him had pulled him off before he could do more than smash his fist into my face.

Something must have shown on my face, because he was standing again, this time looking concerned. "Nathan?"

Had I told him my name? I couldn't remember. Did I know him from somewhere else? I tried to slow my breathing down. The panic attacks came up on me so suddenly, every time someone loomed over me, or looked like they were about to attack.

God, I couldn't even remember what had happened! Was this ever going to be easier?

"Nathan, you ok?"

I jerked away when I felt his hand on my arm. "I'm fine, I'm fine." I gasped out, but the world greyed out.

The next thing I know I'm laying on one of the benches with that weird man looming over me. He moved off immediately so he must have seen I was about to have yet another panic attack. I levered myself up and sitting and tried my hardest to plaster a grin onto my face. "At least tell me I didn't piss myself this time."

It fell flat, like every joke I seem to try nowadays, it just flopped, and I couldn't even bring myself to care. I looked up and he was hovering close by, a look of concern that seemed so disappropriate. He didn't even know me, why was he so concerned?

"You ok now?" he asked.

"Look, I'm sorry, but who are you?" I had to ask, I couldn't go referring to him as 'the man' anymore.

The question surprised him and I watched him struggle for a second with something before he sighed. "Curtis."

I nodded. "Did you know them?" I had to ask. I had to know.

Curtis nodded sharply and looked away.

I groaned, dropping my head into my hands, trying very hard to think, to remember. At last I just leaned back and looked at him, to find him looking back, like he was trying to work something out.

"I didn't know them." I said, surprising myself by the admission. "I didn't know them, and I can't remember them."

That surprised him. "You can't remember them?"

I shook my head. "The only reason I know I was even there is because everyone told me. I got hit pretty hard in the head, cracked my skull. It messed with my brain something awful. I'm lucky I remember who my own mother is. I don't know who they were, or anything about what happened, except from what the police told me, and what it says in the newspapers."

I looked back towards the community centre. "That's why I go back. They deserve better than me just forgetting." I let out a shuddering breath.

There was silence for the longest time, and I was afraid to look round.

"It's not your fault yeah?" Curtis said, making me startle when his hand dropped onto my shoulder. "You couldn't have done anything."

I looked up at him and huffed out a laugh. "And you could have?" I asked him, remembering all his 'I wasn't there' bullshit.

He looked at me, as sad as anything I'd ever seen. "Yeah, yeah I could have."

I really did laugh then, it just sprang out off me. "Sure you could have. Hero complex much?" I pushed myself up, glad that my legs weren't shaking much. "I gotta get home. My mum worries, you know."

He nodded jerkily, and I couldn't help but wonder why he seemed so surprised when I say something. "I'll walk you home." He offered suddenly and I frowned.

"Why?"

He shrugged and couldn't seem to come up with a good reason.

"Sure, why not."

I looked back one more time at the Community Centre before digging my hands in my pockets and hunching up my shoulders. I'd be back tomorrow. I turned my attention to Curtis. "So, how did you know them then?" I asked, had to ask. Needed to know.

Curtis eyed me for a long minute before he answered. "We were doing some community service together. Alisha, Kelly, Simon and me. And this other guy." He looked at me weird again, but I decided to ignore it. "You reminded me of him. Only he was kind of a prick."

My lips twitched into a tiny smile for a moment before it dropped away. "I'm glad you remember them." I told him sincerely.

I really wished I could.


	2. Chapter 2

Curtis

It took a lot of getting used to, this new version of the world. I couldn't understand why I couldn't go back, fix everything, and make everything alright again. I tried. Every day I went up to the community centre, stood in front of those pictures and felt so damned guilty, and every day I walked away, feeling guiltier than ever.

Sometimes I'd see Nathan there, he'd be arriving as I was leaving, or leaving as I was arriving, over a couple of weeks we ended up falling in to some kind of routine. Usually I'd end up walking him home. I actually had to point out he was going in the wrong direction one evening. It was strange; the way he acted now.

He didn't smile, or smirk or grin, or make inappropriate comments. It might have been nice; he'd always driven me mental before, if it wasn't for the way he genuinely didn't know me on our third meet up. He'd been arriving just as I'd been about to go and I'd said hello.

He'd looked at me. "Do I know you?"

At first I'd thought he was taking the piss, like he always did, but it didn't take too long for me to realise that the look of self loathing and frustration was very, very real.

"I don't forget everything all the time." He told me on the day I'd had to point him in the right direction home. "Just, sometimes… sometimes it's like my brain short circuits and the things I should remember just don't… They don't…" he'd waved his hands around like it explained everything.

It made more sense the more I got to know him.

That was what surprised me the most about the whole thing; the fact that I ended up spending so much time with him. In the other future, the one where they'd lived; I'd have given anything to get away from the little Prick… but here, now… I couldn't seem to stay away.

"Why do you always walk me home?" he asked one morning when we were walking back.

I shrugged; I didn't really have a reason. Or at least not one I could give. I didn't think he'd really believe that I had turned back time and messed up his entire life, even if it hadn't been intentional. After three weeks I was starting to give up hope of being able to go back and fix it.

"You get lost real easy." Is what I did say.

He made a sound that I took to be a laugh, more a hitch in his breath than a real sound. "That's true. But I'll have you know I haven't got lost on the way to the corner shop in at least three days."

It would have been funnier if I wasn't absolutely certain it was true. But I smiled a little anyway. "You reckon they'll make you go back and do community service again? Once you're better?"

Nathan shook his head. "Apparently almost being murdered gives you a free pass… Shit! I'm sorry." He stopped walking so suddenly it surprised me into doing the same.

"Why are you sorry?" I asked him.

"They were your friends." He said, scrubbing his hands through his hair. "They were your friends and here I am saying shit like that. God I'm such a fucking dickhead!"

That was when I really realised the difference between the Nathan I had known, and this one. The Nathan I knew didn't know how to feel guilty; making tasteless jokes was just part of his nature. This one. This Nathan was so broken by what had happened he couldn't even be glad that he was alive.

And it was all my fault.

"How the hell can it be your fault?" he asked me, startling me, making me realise that I'd said it out loud. "You weren't even there. It can't be your fault."

"That's why it's my fault." I told him, evenly, closing my eyes against the rush of memories that didn't even exist anymore. Why couldn't I turn back time and fix this? Why?

"You're a right mental case, you know that?" he said.

I opened my eyes in time to see him wavering where he stood and I reached out to catch him before his legs collapsed out from under him. Keeping my arm around his waist I waited for him to sling his round my neck. "How bout we stop talking about this shit until you're sitting down." I told him; I'd noticed he always got a bit shaky. Like his body remembered what had happened and was reacted like it was supposed to, but his head just couldn't connect all the dots.

"Seriously though. Why are you hanging round me so much? I mean, you act like you know me, but I'm almost 50% sure we'd never met before that first time at the community centre." Nathan said quietly as I took the turning down the street towards his house. "They were your friends, it's not like I can tell you anything else about them, what with my brain being like Swiss cheese most of the time, and only knowing them for a day."

I sighed. "I told you before, you remind me of someone."

He blinked up at me. "I do?" he asked.

It made something burn a little inside me when he said that. "Are you getting sicker or what?" I had to ask. He'd made some passing reference to a couple of tests the doctors were doing a few days ago, and it seemed like a safe option to pick for conversation.

He shook his head wearily. "No, I'm just having an off day. It happens. Doctors found some bone stuck in my brain though. Really tiny little slithers of stuff. They're sending the pictures to some specialists to see if there's any point in operating to get them out. It might help with my memory problems, it might not. But they do reckon it would definitely help with the dizziness, the collapsing and the all round general crapness that is my life right now."

His mum was waiting by the door; she'd seen us coming up the street and was looking at Nathan with big worried eyes. She took Nathan from me, giving me a smile in thanks. Nathan gave me an aborted wave.

When the door closed I shut my eyes tight, willing my power to work. Willing myself to move back through time, to fix this. But when I opened them again I was still standing outside Nathan's house.

Why couldn't I change this?

_Just for your info. As far as this story is concerned, Nathan was found nearly dead, he hadn't actually died. If he had he would have been all nicely healed like we seem him every other time he dies. So, for the purposes of this story, the reason Nathan is expirancing all these problems is because his body didn't die, therefore never healed up propourly. Also, I have no idea what head injuries like that can do to a person, so I'm making it up. Lastly, Curtis can't use his time travel simply because I want him to deal with this situation because it's an interesting idea for Curtis to be stuck in that AU he created._


	3. Chapter 3

Louise

"MUM!"

I was out of bed like a shot, startling Jeremy awake as I quickly pulled my dressing gown round me, already reaching for the door handle. I was at the door to Nathan's room in mere seconds. He was curled up at the edge of his bed, he looked about ready to fall off, his head buried into his knees and I could tell he was crying.

I was beside him in an instant, pulling him to me, ignoring the slight flinch as I did; knowing it was from the nightmare and not because of me. He clung to me in a way he hadn't since he was a little boy and cried into my shoulder.

I rocked him slowly, whispering soothing words and waiting for him to calm down.

I missed my cocky son; I missed him so much in these terrible moments. I missed the way nothing anyone said could hurt him. I missed the way he would grin, cheeky and entirely too loveable. I hated that this had happened to him; that he'd had to go through all that; that he still went through it, every night.

He didn't always wake up screaming, but I knew the nightmares came every night. But I couldn't stay with him all the time, and it broke my heart to see him like this.

"Make them go away!" he sobbed quietly, I wouldn't have heard except that he said this most of all. He saw them sometimes, in his nightmares, the ghosts of the others at the community centre. I'd been terrified there was something else wrong with him when he'd started scream that they were in the room with him while he was awake one night.

I'd taken him in for more tests after that.

It wasn't fair that he should have to go through this.

Tears burned my eyes and I pressed him closer to me, kissing his curls. "They can't hurt you." I told him. "It was just a nightmare baby, you're all right."

I didn't let him go until he was asleep again, exhausted by the tears. Even then I stayed and watched him, stroking his hair for the longest time. The nightmares were his minds way of getting him to confront what had happened. The counsellor in the hospital had told me that it was normal after trauma like this. That they should fade with time.

How long was 'time' though? Weeks? Months? Years?

It wasn't fair.

Pressing a final kiss to his forehead I left him to sleep and returned to bed. Jeremy was being very good about all of this. Never complaining about the disturbed nights, or how Nathan had to come first now. I had noticed that since Nathan had stopped looking at him like he was about to turn into some sort of monster, Jeremy had been doing what he could to help Nathan as well.

I got up early; I was never able to sleep well, or for long, after a nightmare night and went downstairs to make breakfast. Sometime after my third cup of coffee the doorbell rang. I went to answer it. I wasn't expecting visitors.

"Curtis!" I said in surprise.

The young man had taken to hanging around Nathan, and I was starting to get very used to him dropping Nathan back to the house. It had eased my worry when that had started. Every time Nathan left the house to go back to the community Centre I spent the entire time forcing myself not to get in the car and go up and collect him.

He needed to be as independent as he could now. I knew that. He seemed to know that I worried so much, because he was always sure to be home long before dark and he called when he realised he'd gotten lost on the way home. But Curtis's sudden appearance in my son's life had eased that worry; I'd received only one call for a pickup in the last four weeks.

"Hey Ms Young." Curtis said, smiling politely, but he looked a little worried.

"Something wrong?" I asked him, stepping aside and ushering him in.

Curtis stood awkwardly in the hall, all gangly limbs and teenage awkwardness, something my Nathan had never shown growing up. He shrugged. "Nathan wasn't up at the centre this morning."

I glanced at the clock. It was barely 8am, how early did Nathan go to the centre?

"I have a practice at 9." Curtis said by way of explanation. "And a thing to do this afternoon. I'd go up this evening, but he doesn't much like being out at night."

I studied Curtis. I knew very little about him except the little Nathan told me, and the little I'd gleaned from watching him with my son. I couldn't help but be a little suspicious of this sudden budding friendship. Nathan had never made friends like this before, who would stop round just to check up, and look so concerned when they did.

"He's still asleep. He didn't have a good night." I said.

"Oh." Curtis said and looked everywhere but at me. "Right, well, I'd better go I guess. Sorry to bother you."

I smiled at him, a little tiredly, but real. "You're hardly a bother Curtis. Thanks for stopping by. I'll let him know you came over."

He nodded and disappeared outside. I watched him walk up the road before I closed the door and went back to the kitchen. Standing with my fourth cup of coffee I closed my eyes.

Hopefully the specialist would get back to us soon, with good news.

I heard the bed creak above me and I knew Nathan was getting up. I listened to him moving around his room, rubbing a hand tiredly across my face. The last thing I needed was for Nathan to see me looking so depressed. This was hard enough on him as it was.

I took a deep breath and forced on as natural looking a smile as I could to greet him when he finally shuffled into the kitchen for his breakfast. Just another perfectly normal day.

Maybe one day it really would be.

Maybe one day I'll see my little boy smile again.

_Just felt the need to do one from the POV of Nathan's mum. I hope you enjoyed._

_._


	4. Chapter 4

_Ok this might seem a little disjointed, but I have come to realise that writing first person is hard. Anyway, a little bit of a look deeper into Nathan's Head and some other stuff too. I hope you enjoy._

Nathan

"Nathan! Curtis is here!"

I rolled my eyes, like I hadn't already figured that one out. Jeremy was already home from work, and it wasn't like anyone else ever came over to visit. Dad always honked the horn outside on the few occasions he stopped over to take me out for dinner. Curtis was the only person I knew who came to the door, for me at least.

"Coming mum!" I yelled, grabbing my jacket and shrugging it on.

This was going to be the first night I had gone out for a drink since it had happened. Between the painkillers and my mum's constant worrying I hadn't even really thought about going out. Somehow it just didn't feel appealing. But Curtis had suggested it and had kept pushing until I agreed. Mum had looked happy and anxious all at once when I'd told her.

"So where we going?" I asked eyeing the last three steps of the stairs. Before I would have thought nothing of jumping the stairs from only halfway down, but now I hesitated on three. Shaking my head I didn't jump them, and made my way to stand by the door.

"Just a pub round where I live." Curtis said, shrugging.

"Cool."

My mum pulled me back for a hug, making me squirm. Seriously, I'm pretty sure I grew out of that sometime in my early teens.

"Now, you be careful out there tonight." Mum said, messing with my collar. "Don't drink too much, and try to be back by twelve." She didn't bother waiting for me to respond, just turned her attention to Curtis. "You'll look after him, won't you Curtis?"

"Mum!" I said, scandalized. "I'm not a baby!"

"Sure thing Ms Young." Curtis said, all dutiful like, smiling winningly and everything. I scowled at him and he smirked back.

"Go have fun boys." Mum smiled.

"You're an ass." I told Curtis the second the door closed behind us.

He shrugged and grinned at me. There was something not altogether happy about that grin, but I wasn't about to call him on it. He was probably thinking about them again, he always got that sad look when he thought about them. I caught him looking at me like that sometimes. I knew I reminded him of them; I still couldn't work out why he hung out with me.

"Come on." He said.

The pub was…

It was nice to be out again, even if it wasn't anything like the raves I used to go to. Just a quiet drink in the pub surrounded by what looked like university graduates. Curtis was making sly comments about them and I couldn't help but smile.

I only had two beers, but by the end of it I was having a really nice time, nearly better than my nights getting too drunk and partying way too hard. It was almost like I was back to myself. Sniggering at the poncey smart arses in the pub. Curtis was actually pretty funny when he got going.

When we were leaving I was leaning on him, sniggering madly. More cheerful than I had been in a long, long time. I felt normal.

I hadn't felt normal in so long.

I grinned, closing my eyes and just soaked in the moment. Forgetting all the bullshit that happened, the dizzy spells, the memory loss. Curtis was still chuckling beside me and I opened my eyes and turned to grin at him.

And there they were.

Watching me.

Everything stuttered to a stop.

Watching me smile, and laugh. Watching me forget about them. Watching me living.

"Nathan!"

I was on the ground. Curtis's hands on my shoulders, eyes moving frantically across my face. I took a deep, shaking breath, my hands coming up to fist in his shirt, needing something to hold onto as the whole world stopped swimming. I moved my eyes deliberately from him, looking back to where they had been.

"Nonononononono." I whispered.

They stood there, the four of them, stark and visible in their orange jumpsuits, watching me, like they did at night; those few I didn't wake screaming from, when my mum didn't come running and banish them.

"Nathan!" Curtis shook me hard, snapping my attention back to me.

"They're here." I whispered.

He looked around and frowned. "Who?"

Of course he couldn't see them. They were all in my damned head. Why would they haunt their friend when they could torment me? I should have died with them. Why hadn't I died? Maybe if I had died they would have lived…

"Nathan stop it!" Curtis snapped and he was pulling me up.

I vaguely heard some jeering behind us and Curtis snapped a "Fuck off asshole!" And he was pulling me along and he didn't stop until he'd found somewhere to sit me down.

I felt their eyes following me the whole time.

He collapsed onto the bench beside me, slumping back and sighing.

"I'm sorry." I whispered.

That only made him sigh again, and I didn't dare look at him. "Stop apologising for shit you can't help." He told me. "Maybe it was too soon to drag you out. But it's just too weird sometimes, the way you—" he cut himself off and I was too tired and shaken up to ask him to explain.

More apologies got stuck in my throat and finally all I could do was drop my head to rest in my hands.

"What happened?" he asked.

Should I tell him? Would he even believe me? Mum always said it was just me remembering my nightmares, but she always looked at me like I was just one word away from crazy. I didn't dare bring it up to the counsellor mum made me go to.

"I see them sometimes." I surprised myself again. "Like ghosts, just watching me…"

"Ghosts?" He didn't sound like he thought I was crazy. I looked at him and saw him frowning at me thoughtfully. "You can see ghosts?" He said it like it meant something.

"I wish I couldn't." I said, leaning back, scrubbing a hand through my hair. "But I guess I deserve it."

He looked surprised. "How can you deserve it?" he asked me.

I huffed a laughed. "I survived. Fuck, I can't remember. No wonder they're haunting me. I should have died with them."

He was quiet for so long that I had to look at him again. "Why do you always say that?" he asked me, an unreadable expression on his face.

I frowned at him. "Because it's true. There's no reason I should have survived and they didn't. No rational explanation. You knew them. You can't say they didn't deserve to live more than I did. I'm just a fucking screwed up bastard. Fuck. My own mum threw me out she couldn't stand to have me around. The only reason I'm living back home is because of what happened."

I sighed. "What use am I now anyway? A brain like Swiss cheese, I can hardly go a whole day without a dizzy spell. I'm just useless."

It all just poured out of me, all the little niggling things I kept very carefully to myself usually, about my so called friends from before who had yet to come visit me. About the nightmares. Those moments of weakness when I was alone when I just couldn't stop the outpouring of emotion. The hate I felt for myself.

He listened, never interrupting, until I ran out of steam and shut myself down into silence.

"It's not your fault Nathan." He said quietly at last.

I could already see where he was going with this. "Don't start!" I snapped at him. "You couldn't have done anything. If you'd been there you would be dead too and then where would I be?" He looked like he was struggling with something but he didn't say any of what he usually did.

"It's still not your fault." He said instead.

Maybe he was right, maybe it wasn't. But it felt like it.

He sighed. "Come on, let's get you home." He held out a hand to be and I seriously contemplated it before I took it and let him haul me to my feet.

We walked back in silence. I almost wanted to tell him I could make my own way home. It was stupid for him to walk me all the way home, only to have to walk all the way back. I didn't, and I wasn't sure if that made me seem more of a pathetic loser than I already was, so desperate for a friend, I was willing to cling to the first person to show an interest.

I hadn't been like this before.

Why had everything changed so much?

"Why do you stick around?" I asked him when we'd reached my door. The kitchen light was still on, which meant Mum was still up, probably waiting with a drink for me, to ask me how it had gone. I hated that she worried so much.

"You're not supposed to be like this." He said.

"What?" It was really the only response I could give.

He looked everywhere but at me. "You're supposed to be cocky, arrogant. You're supposed to make tasteless jokes and act like a prick. You're not supposed to be like this. I just… I just want you to be you again."

I frowned at him. How did he know so much about what I was like before, what I would love to be again just because it meant I would stop being like this? "Do I know you?" I asked him, for the third time since I met him, because I could finally see that there was something else going on.

Why was he so hung up on not being there? Why was he so sure that him being there would have helped?

"No." he said. "No you don't. Goodnight Nathan."

I watched him leave, right up until my attention was arrested by them, standing under a street lamp, watching me. Fighting off the beginnings of a panic attack I fumbled quickly to get into the house and into the distracting presence of my mother.

Was this ever going to get easier?


	5. Chapter 5

Curtis

It had been working. It had taken weeks and weeks of pushing and prodding, but he'd finally started to come out of his shell, started to act more and more like how I remembered. It was relieving, to know that he was still in there somewhere, and it didn't irritate me nearly as much as it used to when he made the comments he did.

I wanted to tell him, that seeing the ghosts wasn't just him being crazy, that it must have been the effect of the storm; but to explain would mean I would have to tell him about my power and everything I'd done, and how I'd really ruined his whole life.

I couldn't do that.

I just couldn't.

So I pretended I knew nothing about superpowers, let him think it was all just in his head, saw him through the thankfully few panic attacks he had when he saw them around me and just kept trying to make him like he used to be. Like he should be.

I felt bad sometimes for wanting him to be the Nathan I remembered, but I always pushed it away. After all, I would reason, it wasn't his fault this had happened, he didn't deserve to live like this and it was my job now to see that he came out the other side and was like how he used to be.

It surprised me how easy it was to fall into a friendship with Nathan, without all his defences on high alert it was easy to see he needed a friend. Looking back I could see now that he'd just been afraid to let people close. I felt justified in persisting to hang around him.

I'd been gone on a training weekend, so I hadn't seen Nathan since the previous Thursday. After I dumped my bags at home the first place I went was his house. I was at the bottom of his road when I realised that something was wrong. All the blinds were shut and there were four or five cars parked outside.

Shoving down the growing dread worming its way inside me, I kept walking, right up to the door and knocked.

Jeremy answered the door and offered me a weak smile. "Hey Curtis. Come on in."

I did.

Someone was crying in the kitchen.

I hesitated, looking back at Jeremy, but he just waved me towards the living room. I was barely at the door when Nathan's Mum stepped out of the kitchen, wiping her eyes.

"Curtis." She smiled, but it was shaky and clearly forced.

"Ms. Young." I said. "What's going on?"

Her lips trembled and my whole world narrowed for a moment. "Nathan… he… he had a bad fall… he… he…" and she was crying again, and Jeremy was holding her.

My attention snapped to the door of the living room and I took the ten extra steps to reach it and looked inside.

A coffin stood where the TV used to be and all the chairs in the house seemed to be crammed into the small space. An elderly couple I could only assume were Nathan's grandparents were sitting talking quietly over to the side, and a lone man was sitting right beside the coffin.

I don't know how I managed to get to the coffin, but suddenly I was there, looking down at a waxy looking Nathan, his eyes closed, looking peaceful.

What had happened?

Why had it happened?

This was all my fault!

"It was an accident." I turned to look at the man seated beside me, he looked heartbroken, Nathan's dad then. "Just a stupid bloody accident."

"What happened?" I asked my voice suddenly hoarse.

"Near as we can tell he had a dizzy spell up at the community centre, ended up falling down the steps there and banged his head." The man gave a pained laugh. "He survives getting his head smashed in by a psychopath, but one little bump to the head and he's…"

I swallowed and squeezed my eyes shut.

No. No, it couldn't end like this. It couldn't.

I leaned over the coffin and looked at him again, forcing my eyes open to look at him, to see what my meddling had done. What my power had done. My selfishness had killed them, all of them. It was driven home in a way it never had before.

That was when the world stopped turning.

And then it started to flow backwards.

Tears of grief mingled with those of relief, and I didn't know what to feel anymore. I only knew that I was going to fix this.

_I don't know how it's done in England, but in Ireland a wake is held for 3ish days before the burial, the coffin and the body remain in the house until the day of the funeral instead of going to a funeral parlour. Seeing as how Nathan's family is Irish, I believe they would follow this tradition._

_This is based on the assumption that the first time Nathan dies, it takes a while for the immortality to kick in, the other times we see him die he's up and about within 12-24 hours, but it takes longer to organise a funeral and stuff, so the first time it takes time for the power to come online._


	6. Chapter 6

Nathan

He was watching me again.

Now, I'm not saying it creeped me out, I'm an open minded enough guy. I don't mind a bit of playing the field on both sides of the fence. Not something I broadcast, but not something I really hide. But the way he watches me is just weird. I thought he was all into… curly haired one-Alisha! Hell, I had to help him break up with his other girlfriend so he could be with her.

Good times. Good times.

But he watched me, when he thought I wasn't looking, and he was totally ramping up the mutters of 'Prick'. It was like a faulty hot and cold tap. I'm never too sure if he's about to flinch if I go near him, or say something that's supposed to mean something to me but clearly doesn't.

But, being who I am, I can't really let it go on for too long before calling attention to it.

"Do you fancy me or something?" there we go, blunt as always. No one can say I don't know how to get my point across. "Only, if you do, I need to tell you. You're really not my type. You're rather lacking in certain things I'm rather fond of at the moment, in the chest area if you get my meaning." Which was true. I went through phases.

His eyes go wide and he struggled for a long time to come up with a response, which turns out to be an obligatory "Prick."

"Then why are you always making googly eyes at me. Won't Curly get angry with you?" I pressed with a grin.

He shakes his head before he meets my eyes with a heart stopping amount of seriousness, enough to make the smile slip from my face, to make even me serious for a moment. No, it was more than that, it made me nervous. Like he was looking at me, really looking, and seeing something I 'm not sure I wanted anyone to see.

"You can see ghosts." He said at last.

That completely derailed me. "What?"

He sighed and his eyes flicked away. "Your power. You can see ghosts."

"You're making that up. How would you know anyway?" I had to ask.

He shrugged. "I went back in time, changed some things, and I ended up in some kind of alternate reality where I hadn't been caught, so I wasn't here when the Probation worked went mental and everyone died." He swallowed thickly, and I couldn't even joke, because he was serious. "Except for you. You survived, and you could see their ghosts."

I very quickly backpedalled away from the gaping hole that begged for questions. Questions like; "What was I like in this other world?" "Did something happen to me, is that why you keep looking?" Instead I said, all bluster. "Ghosts? You mean I'm like that chick, in that show with the ghosts. You know the one, where she's all gorgeous and that, and can see ghosts. That's a crappy power, not on the A-List at all. I think you're just making this shit up man!" I forced a laugh, because he's watching me, dead serious, like he's reading me, and I don't like that one bit.

He sighed again and I felt like I was missing something, something absolutely huge. But I wasn't ready to find out what he had learned about me in this other world, because I realised now that he was looking for something in me now that he had seen then. I wouldn't have let anyone that close, not if I'd been in my right mind.

But I couldn't stop thinking about it.

I ended up pulling him aside one day to ask, for once in my life without the bluster and the insults, just genuinely curious. To my surprise he told me, just poured everything out. He didn't cry or anything girly like that, but I don't think I would have even joked about it if he had.

That was the start of it.

Me and Curtis had not really gotten on from the start. He was too uptight, and I really wasn't. We weren't friends now, not in the way I had friends. He knew things about me that I didn't like him knowing, I didn't like anyone knowing. But it made it easier too, made it easier to relax around him, to be able to drop the defences, even if just for a moment or two and know that he understood in a way that Kelly, with all her mind reading didn't.

And he had a wicked sense of humour when he got started.

It was weird, but a little bit nice at the same time.

But he still watched me sometimes, like he was expecting me to do something that the other me did. In my crueller moment I had been tempted to fake a dizzy spell just to see what he'd do; but I could never actually bring myself to go through with it.

So we were stuck in a kind of limbo, not friends, but not like we had been before.

It was strange comparing yourself with yourself. I was never quite sure if it was me he was seeing half the time, or the other me. But it was something I couldn't really look too deeply at. It wasn't in my nature, so I would ignore it. Carry on and hope for the best.

But seriously though.

Ghosts?

I can see Ghosts?

I mean seriously. I survived having my head caved in by that prick of a probation worker. It couldn't have been Immortality or something cool? No. I got the power to see ghosts.

Brilliant.

_Right. The story isn't quite finished yet, but the continuation will be in a sequel. I will come back and write in the evolving friendship between Curtis and the original Nathan (though it may take a while), and knowing me, it may become slash, so consider yourself warned. I'm sorry these chapters are so short, but I've been busy._


End file.
